Destrehan Ladycats push to 2nd round before loss

Ryley Boyne and her Destrehan teammates earned a road playoff victory this season and put together something to build on for 2019.

Following a first round upset at Acadiana, Destrehan’s volleyball season came to an end in the second round against a powerful St. Joseph’s lineup, 25-13, 25-11 and 25-20.

“They were the better, more seasoned team,” said Destrehan coach Edward Borgstede, who led the Wildcats to a 27-16 record and wrapped up his second season as the team’s head coach. “It was a real good atmosphere at St. Joseph’s and I know our underclassmen took a lot of positives from the experience.”

Destrehan entered the playoffs as the No. 20 seed in Division I and bested No. 13 Acadiana in the first round. But St. Joseph’s, the No. 4 team in the field, was too big a hurdle to overcome.

Not that DHS didn’t overcome plenty of those this season, pushing through some key injuries to its front line to rally at season’s end and win its first playoff match in several seasons.

That win came in five games, 21-25, 25-18, 28-30, 25-16 and 15-9 over Acadiana last Thursday night.

Allie Carmichael had 44 assists to help lead Destrehan. Noelle Kelley had 24 digs. Danae Lathers and Isabelle Chaisson each had six blocks. Four DHS hitters had double figures in kills, including Gia Zeringue (14), Ryley Boyne (13), Nijai Smith (10) and Danae Lathers (10).

“I truly felt it was a 50-50 type of game … the seeding meant nothing to me,” Borgstede said. “It was a great atmosphere. Acadiana packed a ton of people in, and we traveled real well with our fans too. I thought the momentum really started to shift later in the match because of our conditioning … we were actually playing and hitting harder 10 points into the fifth set than we were 10 points into the beginning of the match.”

It was Destrehan’s first playoff win under Borgstede, who joined the program in 2016, and he called it an “ultimate team effort.”

“Whenever someone had something go wrong, somebody else picked them up,” Borgstede said. “Every single player contributed in some way.”

The third set threatened to be a turning point against Destrehan, which had to come back after battling hard only to fall 30-28 and go behind two games to one.
But the Wildcats largely controlled the fourth game throughout, and rode that momentum through the fifth and deciding set.

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